Soup! Breadsticks! Eddington's is back in the Minneapolis skyway

Eddington's is back.

The soup-and-breadsticks operation was a fixture to several generations of downtown Minneapolis skyway diners. That is, until the company's decades-long lunchtime presence seemingly evaporated a few years ago.

A new iteration quietly popped up this week in the Northstar Center, taking over a small-scale spot on the building' skyway level.

"We knew there was a need," said manager Chad Sprinkel. His brother Jeff Sprinkel is the company's owner.

The quick-service setup is following a format similar to the one that made it such a noon-hour stalwart. The main event is a roster of soups – Thursday's selection featured pot pie, vegetable beef, tomato basil, chicken noodle, chicken chili, Wisconsin Cheddar cheese and chili ($4.29 per cup, $5.59 per bowl).

"We're going to get into a rotation," said Chad Sprinkel. "Right now, we're figuring out what people want."

Other menu items include grab-and-go salads ($6.49 to $7.99), sandwiches ($6.49 to $6.99) and uncomplicated sweets (cookies and bars, $1.29 to $1.99). Coming soon: loaded baked potatoes ($5.99).

Eddington's didn't disappear. The company has been operating a commissary kitchen in northeast Minneapolis, and recently opened a retail outlet at Metro State University in St. Paul.

The original Eddington's opened in 1981, in a second-floor walk-up above the Paris Beauty Salon on 8th Street in downtown Minneapolis; it's now the site of US Bancorp Center. Original owners — and brothers-in-law — Jeff Christensen and Lewis Bautista named the place for their wives' maiden name. "Homemade soups, salads and breads will be featured, along with bread pudding and rice pudding for dessert," wrote Minneapolis Star columnist Barbara Flanagan.

By 1986, the restaurant had moved to a skyway location at 6th and Nicollet. By 1990, there were four locations: two on the downtown Minneapolis skyway, along with outlets in downtown St. Paul and the Ridgedale shopping center. Others followed in the suburbs, and then retraction. The final brick-and-mortar Eddington's closed in 2017.